Handwritten Recipes: Aunt Viola's Heirloom Banana Bread

In case you're wondering, the 'i' in 'Viola' is a long vowel sound - not like the instrument.  Say it with me: "Vie-OH-lah."  Yes, that's it.  Aunt Viola was my great great aunt, my great-grandmother's sister.  This recipe has made its way to my hands via my most excellent cousin Becky.  She knows me well (for proof, look closely at what's in parenthesis beside the chocolate chips in the ingredient list).  Cousin Becky, you're a winner.  

Aunt Viola's Heirloom Banana Bread

1 c. sugar
1/4 tsp. salt
1 stick butter
1 tsp. baking soda
2 eggs
4 mashed bananas, frozen then thawed (this is extremely important.  Don't you dare use fresh bananas)
1 1/2 c. flour
1/4 c. nuts (optional)
1/2 c. chocolate chips (not optional)

Mix until well blended.  Stir in chocolate chips and nuts.  Pour in greased loaf pan.  Bake at 350 about 1 hour or until cooked through.

What's been keeping us busy, you ask?  Besides, of course, making and eating banana bread, naturally. 

 

Well, things like this: a 17-month old who's chatty and likes to pull books off of shelves (and then smiles a melting smile and flashes those blue eyes) - and preparing for my first ever CRAFT FAIR on Saturday 4/26 - and getting a community garden plot (20'x20' of local investment!) - and trying to firm up some farmer's market plans.  Oh, and neighbors and friends and visitors from out of town and local restaurants and spring time and surprise snows and kids.

Just a few little things.  But there's always time for family, and Aunt Viola's banana bread.  Naturally.

Handwritten Recipe: Hello Dollies

1 1/2 sticks butter, melted (3/4 c.)
2 c. graham cracker crumbs
12 oz. chocolate chips (1 bag)
2 c. shredded coconut
2 small bags pecan pieces
2 cans sweetened condensed milk

Mix butter and crumbs, put in a 13x9" pan.  Layer chocolate chips, coconut, and pecans.  Top with milk.  Bake at 350 F for 30 minutes or until browned.  Loosen sides while warm; cut when cool.

Do you know about Hello Dollies?  If not, let me introduce you to what might be the most indulgent dessert you'll meet in 2014.  Butter.  Chocolate.  Coconut + nuts.  Sugary creamy gooeyness.  They are stick-in-your-molars delicious, and if you're anything like me you'll tell your kid it's a pan of Parent Food for After Bedtime.

These cookie bars are also known as Magic Bars, Outrageous Bars, and Seven Layer Bars (though, honestly, I don't know why ... I only count six ingredients, and five actual layers).  This particular one comes from a friend of my mom's.  It must've been dictated to her (or kindly copied from an email), because that's my mother dear's handwriting.

If you're looking for something to literally throw together from ingredients you have on hand, this would be it.

Please excuse me now.  I hear Parent Food calling.

Zucchini Four Ways

Are you finding yourself with tons of zucchini these days?

We are.

We are hanging out with some friends who have had a rather prolific garden zucchini season - so prolific, in fact, that they've shared multiple 12-pound zucchinis the size of baseball bats (I'm not kidding) that suddenly showed up in their garden.

Do you see the muscle strain?
This 'chini is no joke.

Just for some perspective.  That is not a mini bottle of wine.

So, what should we do with such garden abundance?  Why, serve it four different ways!

Zucchini Tarts

Zucchini Tart: we used this recipe for a Zucchini Quiche, but layered it in little tart pans instead.  A double recipe made 12 4-inch tarts.

Chocolate Zucchini Bread

Here is the recipe for Chocolate Zucchini Bread from the Rhymes With Smile archives.  We have been referring to it as Chocolate Vegetables around here, so that we can eat it whenever.

Grilled Zucchini

Easy grilled zucchini: sliced in 1/4-inch rounds, brushed with olive oil and sprinkled with sea salt and black pepper, then grilled over medium heat for 3-5 minutes on each side.

Cheesy Zucchini Rice

Cheesy Zucchini Rice: a recipe I found on Pinterest.  In a nutshell, cook some rice with a little more water or broth than usual.  Cook for 15 minutes.  Remove from heat and stir in 1 pound of shredded zucchini, 8 ounces shredded cheese, and salt and pepper to taste.  Cover with lid and let sit for 5-10 minutes or until all the water is absorbed.  This was really delicious!

So ... what do you do when faced with lots and lots of zucchini?

Food I Can't Stop Making: Chocolate Chip Cookies

Best-Ever Chocolate Chip Cookies, from here

3/4 c. unsalted butter, softened (1 1/2 sticks)
3/4 c. brown sugar
1/4 c. granulated sugar
1 egg
2 tsp. vanilla extract
2 c. flour
2 tsp. cornstarch
1 tsp. baking soda
1/2 tsp. salt
1 c. bittersweet chocolate chips

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
In the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with a paddle attachment, cream together butter and sugars until fluffy and light in color.  Add egg and vanilla and blend in.
Mix in flour, cornstarch, baking soda, and salt.  Stir in chocolate chips.
Using a cookie scoop or tablespoon, drop dough onto a baking sheet.  Bake for 8-10 minutes, until barely golden brown around the edges (the tops will not brown, but do NOT cook longer than 10 minutes!).
Let cool on the sheet on a wire rack for five minutes.  Remove from baking sheet and let cool completely.  Makes approximately 3 dozen.

Seriously, the best chocolate chip cookies I've ever eaten

Sometimes I get in a rut with food, where I make the same things over and over because I can't think of anything else to do.
Sometimes I get in a groove with food, where I make the same things over and over because I can't get enough of them.

These are "groove" cookies.  I've made two batches in six days.  Calculate it: yes, that's over 60 cookies in a household where I'm the only one who eats dessert.  In my defense, I've shared and given most of them away (I actually used a dozen as an excuse to meet a neighbor I've been stalking eyeing wanting to meet for the last few months), but I've also eaten my fair share of them.  I even hid an offer of these cookies in a recent blog post because I'm so crazy about them (I guess the offer still stands.  I'd be up for making more).

Enough of me talking.  Put down whatever you're doing right now that you think is important (like reading some silly blog post) and go make some cookies.  And let them bake for only 10 minutes, max - that's how you get such delicious cookiness, ya'll.

chocochococonut

This recipe for Chocolate-Chocolate Chip-Coconut cookies is a slight variation on last December's Triple Chocolate Cookies, in case you're wondering why it looks so familiar.  Variations marked in bold.

1 c. all-purpose flour
1/2 c. unsweetened cocoa powder
1/2 tsp. baking soda
1/4 tsp. baking powder
Pinch of salt
1/2 c. (1 stick) butter, melted
1/2 c. sugar
1/2 c. light brown sugar
1 egg
1 tsp. vanilla
1/2 c. semisweet chocolate chips
1/2 c. flaked coconut


Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Sift together flour, cocoa, baking soda, baking powder, and salt.  Melt butter in a small pan over medium heat, stirring frequently.  Continue stirring until butter separates.  Add to mixing bowl. Cream butter and sugars together until smooth (this won't look like your traditional "creamed butter and sugar" fluffiness, but go with it anyway.  Scrape the sides of the bowl a few times), and beat in the egg and vanilla. Add the flour mixture and mix until almost blended. Add the chocolate chips and coconut and mix. Roll the dough into 1-inch balls and place on an ungreased baking sheet 2 inches apart. Bake for 12-14 minutes. Transfer to a wire rack to cool, and store in an airtight container up to 7 days. Makes 2 to 3 dozen (depends on the size of the cookie!).

OK.  This was a little bit of an experiment.  My general rule is to not experiment with baking, only with cooking ... but I ran into a snag when I went to make these cookies: the only butter I had was frozen, and I didn't have time or a microwave to defrost it.  So, I had to come up with something.  I remembered a friend had made chocolate chip cookies with browned, melted butter because the test kitchens of Cook's Illustrated had suggested it. 

Browned butter?  Hmmm.

I decided just to melt it and let it sit in the pan for a few over medium-low heat to see if I got anything brown.  I didn't.  Maybe I didn't let it heat long enough.  What I DID get, though, was butter separation.  The oily stuff stayed on the bottom and foamy stuff came to the top.  I didn't skim it, though that seemed like something logical to do.  Again, hmmm.

Well, cookies are cookies, and I'll be dadgummed if I didn't just decide to use the mysterious melt anyway.  I poured it into my mixing bowl and added the sugars and mixed away.  As I mentioned in the directions above, this didn't look like the usual "Cream butter and sugar" outcome.  I thought the cookies would be runny because of the melt.  Of course, that didn't keep me from plowing ahead ... there were cookies on the horizon and nothing was going to stop me!  So I proceeded to add everything else, following the directions.  I threw in some coconut at the end because (a) I love coconut (b) I found half a bag of it in my freezer and (c) I thought it would add an exotic flair.

Pleasant surprise:

The cookies held up nicely.

They didn't run and flatten out at all.

In fact, the dough was pretty sturdy, and when I rolled it into balls it wasn't sticky at all.

What I don't know is if the sturdiness of the dough is due to the melted butter or the coconut.  Hmmm.

twice desserted

World's Best Ever Plain Pound Cake: this - be aware that it makes a rather large cake and it needs the ENTIRE time to bake, maybe even a bit more.  Don't be fooled by a brown top - check the cake with a toothpick or knife to see if the middle is completely done before removing.  If you have any leftovers, they're great toasted for breakfast with a bit of jam on top.

World's Easiest Chocolate Sauce For Pound Cake: Heat 1/4 c. butter, 1/2 c. chocolate chips (though I'm pretty sure the original recipe called for baking chocolate), 1/4 c. milk and 1 c. sugar over low heat.  Bring to boiling; stir constantly and boil for one minute.  Remove from heat and cool before serving, if desired.

We had this cake at the bloggiversary potluck - I forced my friend Rebecca into an evening of slave labor in my kitchen in exchange for dinner, so she did this one start to finish for me.  She got rave reviews.  I'm not surprised.  She's quite the kitchen diva.

A few noteworthy things have been happening this week:

-I'm officially into my second year of blogging

-My father-in-law supervised my mozzarella-making adventure that will result in tomorrow's tomato-mozzarella-basil salad

-I viewed a chicken deboning a la Julia Child and it was everything she said it would be: "By the time you have completed ... this, [it] will appear to be an unrecognizable mass of confusion and you will wonder how in the world any sense can be made of it all."  The formerly mentioned FIL worked a bit of magic with the smoker and some mushrooms, with such a spectacularly tasty result that Julia called and asked to feature him in her new edition.